Chilled Cantaloupe Soup

By Chef Gwen, posted 12 months ago

Amanda & Merrill's Notes:

Cantaloupe soup is often overly sweet and one-dimensional. Not so with Chef_Gwen’s Chilled Cantaloupe Soup. She adds orange, lemon and lime juice to the fruit, giving it a healthy blast of acidity, and then spices the soup with cinnamon and salt. When you taste it, you first get the sweet fruit, which seems impossibly bright and refreshing, and this is followed by waves of cinnamon. The soup, which takes 5 minutes to prepare, separates as it sits, so give it a stir before serving and get it ice, ice cold. And don’t forget the mint and yogurt swirls, which aren’t merely decorative -- the yogurt enriches the soup and the mint adds a note of freshness. - A&M

The recipe hails from my cookbook, The Cool Mountain Cookbook, which is a compilation of home-tested recipes from fabulous ski resorts around the country. This particular recipe is adapted from the Topnotch Resort in Stowe, VT. Although it calls for cantaloupe, a really ripe honeydew melon would make a lovely substitution. A swirl of yogurt thinned with a little milk on top would be a nice, creamy garnish. - Chef Gwen

Serves 6

• 6 cups chopped cantaloupe, about 1 (4 pound) melon
• 1 1/2 cup orange juice
• 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
• 1/4 cup fresh lime juice
• 2 tablespoons honey
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 sprig fresh mint

1. Place all ingredients, except for the mint, in a large bowl and stir.
2. Place half the mixture in a blender and puree until smooth. Pour soup into a pitcher, and repeat with remaining mixture.
3. Taste and whisk in more cinnamon, honey or even lemon juice if desired. It should taste sweet and tart, with only a hint of cinnamon. Chill the soup until ready to serve.
4. Remove the mint leaves from the stem (discard) and stack the leaves on top of each other. Roll lengthwise into a tight "cigar." Slice crosswise into thin strips.
5. Pour the chilled soup into six soup bowls. Garnish each with a sprinkle of shredded mint and serve.